This is the first time I have raised political issues on this blog, but recent events have compelled me. We see our economy laid waste by the banks and our leaders say they will solve the problem by penalising the poor. David Cameron’s recent speech on his future plans for the welfare system, combined with his party’s already slapdash, irrational approach to combating unemployment and recession, betrayed a shallowness of understanding. Whereas many others have swam in the murky waters of economic engineering, and a brave few have dived deep, Cameron has clearly barely gotten his toes wet. Our government’s economic policies are a shambles - no surprise given that our Chancellor, George Osborne, a man required to be an expert on finance and society, boasts a second-class degree in history as his highest qualification.
Granted, the benefits system is off-balance in many areas. It is possible for a family on benefits to receive more than a family where people work - but this is far rarer than the Conservatives would have us believe. Jobseekers Allowance, for example, allows only a meagre standard of living. There are undoubtedly some people who rely on benefits as a way of life and have no interest in working, But again they are the minority. Benefits are an unreliable, insufficient, and unsatisfying way of life. It makes no sense to assume, when jobs are so hard to come by that there aren’t enough to go around, that a large number of people are on benefits because they choose to be. Most people want reasonable amounts of money, most people want prospects, most people want to do something with their lives. The tragedy is that a great many people can’t do anything with their lives, either because the economy isn't providing the work they need, or the education system has failed them or not allowed them to go as far as they need to, or simply because of unfortunate situations they find themselves in, like having a disability or needing to care for someone with a disability.
It is unfair that some get supported by the state while others have to work hard for a living, it is unfair that some people get more on benefits than some others do from work, it is unfair that some people get away with cheating or exploiting the system… but nobody ever said life would be fair. It is also unfair that some people get born into wealth, or into families that at least have the money to provide support, while other get born into families with debt and no prospects. It is unfair that some struggle to find work while others get a foot into their chosen career by knowing the right people. It is unfair that some can go further in education than others, simply because of their financial situation. It is unfair that some people can buy their own homes with little effort, or may even inherit a home, while others will never afford a house and will forever have the risk of homelessness hanging over their heads.
Axing certain benefits for anyone who falls within arbitrary criteria is not going to make things better for anyone. The problem with this government is their policies are always negative - their policies always seek to take away, to make sure everyone suffers hardship, when they should be doing everything they can to help. Cutting benefits for people who have taken too long to find work unfairly penalises those who are having the most trouble finding work. Forcing workshy people into jobs takes jobs away from people who really want them. They should be focusing on creating jobs and making sure people can go as far with education and training as they need to, regardless of their financial background.
Forcing people into work placement schemes takes people away from doing more constructive and useful training and job hunting, and discourages the companies involved from offering paid jobs. We should be pushing companies to create paid work, and giving unemployed people placements that will genuinely improve their skills. Sometimes work placements allow unemployed people to improve their skills (depending on the placement and the skills the person already possesses), but in cases like that of Cait Reilly, who was forced to give up her work experience placement in a museum to do full-time unpaid work in Pound land - despite the fact that she already had retail experience - it achieves nothing and is an excuse to force people to work for no pay. If a person is willing to work, they should receive a fair wage.
Speaking of fair wages, reducing benefits is not the right way to ensure that the unemployed never receive more money than workers. The problem is that a great many people who are doing hard work and working long hours still cannot make ends meet, due to the rapidly rising cost of living, inflation that has been artificially inflated by banks and companies that have used the recession as an excuse to repeatedly raise prices, a lack of high-skilled work (and lack of access to the same), wages that have increased very little over the past decade, and a minimum wage rate that is hopelessly out of date. This country needs a living wage that will guarantee that everybody who is willing to work will be able to live comfortably and that all those willing to work long hours or difficult jobs will eventually be able to afford their own homes and adequate pensions. Implementing a living wage (or at least drastically increasing the minimum wage) would allow some workers to reduce their hours, thereby freeing up work for others. We would see an increase in work-share schemes and people choosing part-time work. Work would become a much more desirable option to the workshy. There would be an increase in the number of jobs available. People would be able to achieve a better work/life/rest balance, making work more feasible for parents, carers, students and those with low-level disabilities. This would lead to an increase in tax revenue, benefiting the public sector. A living wage would have an advantage over a simple increase in minimum wage, as it would increase in line with inflation. Therefore, it would not prompt a rise in cost of living and would be a sustainable solution to the problem of rising living costs, rather than a temporary fix.
Capping the rate of housing benefit is going to force thousands, perhaps millions, of families to relocate - causing a chaotic mass exodus that will consume most of the low rent housing still available and exacerbate the shortage of affordable housing. It will force people away from where the jobs are. It will split families apart, force some couples who have many children to separate and share the children between them so that they can split into two smaller houses that will have rents covered by housing benefit. Given that many of the largest households are those of ethnic minorities, and many of the most expensive houses are in central England, we will see an evacuation of ethnic communities from cities like London, fuelling racial tensions and even possibly radicalising some young people. The government should be regulating rates of rent and mortgage repayments.
The current rate of tax for low earners represents a significant chunk of their wages and pushes many below the breadline, or at least turns the amount they earn for the hours they work into a pittance. Meanwhile, major corporations, banks and multi-millionaires exploit tax loopholes to pay tiny amounts of tax (or, sometimes, none at all) despite having enough disposable wealth to pay off the deficit in short order and keep this country afloat for some time to come. Reinstating the 10p tax rate for low earners would make life much easier for millions, while a tax on city transactions, a one-off wealth tax, and a blitz on tax loopholes and tax havens would raise billions and effect only those who could afford to lose a little. The banks have a duty to pay out, since their unethical actions helped cause the credit crunch, and can afford to pay out, seeing as they owe the government vast sums of money from the bailouts and yet are still awarding their board members eight-figure bonuses. This practice of obscenely huge bonuses for banking executives, regardless of how much corruption is evident in theior practices, how bad the economy is or how much money they owe to the government and their customers, is one that George Osborne is currently fighting to protect, even in the aftermath of two major banking scandals.
The prevalent argument from the political right-wing is that any assault on banks and businesses would drive them away from this country. Not so. Managers with a professional outlook and / or a shred of civic responsibility will remain. Those in business to do business will recognise that they stand to absorb all the customers and employees that are abandoned by those who leave, and will be in a position to expand to fill the void. Any bankers or business moguls who are willing to pass up this huge money-making opportunity, and decide to leave simply because they are unwilling to pay their fair share, will be no great loss to this country. The divide between rich and poor has been growing steadily for decades and shows no sign of breaking this trend. On a global level, the situation is so dire that the world’s three richest individuals have more money than the world’s poorest 48 countries! Taxing the banks and the mega-rich would give us a chance to help alleviate inequality on a global scale.
What makes this 'let's not scare them away' excuse for not taxing the banks especially absurd and spurious is that it's a situation that would only occur if the UK acted unilaterally. And yet the UK is the country that has repeatedly vetoed such measures when they have been put forward by the rest of the EU.
The disability reassessments are simply an example of scapegoating: pre-determining the approximate number of claimants that will be taken off benefits implies the assumption that this number of claimants are fit for work, before any tests have been done. Changing the rules to assess what people can do rather than what they can't ignores the obvious disadvantages that people with disabilities (of any level of severity) face in the job market, being limited in what jobs they can do and, often, how many hours they can manage to work. What all this will result in is a great many physically or mentally vulnerable people who either cannot work or cannot find work being forced onto jobseekers allowance -- which will eventually be taken away from them when they fail to start work.
Benefits exist as a safety net for us all - job security barely exists these days, and anyone who gets laid off from their job and has no savings to fall back on and no-one they rely on for support desperately needs that safety net. This is why some of our taxes go to maintaining a benefits system, not so that the lazy and feckless can get away with not working. Unfortunately, this is a negative side-effect of having a safety net in place, but in an economy that is struggling, where work is scarce and unreliable, this is a necessary evil. Why take precious jobs away from those that want them, to force them onto people who don’t want them and won’t do them properly? Why spend millions chasing up cheats and scroungers when the goal is to save money? And why take more money away from the poor, away from people barely making ends meet, when the rich have yet to even pay a fair share, and still have billions of pounds to spare?
